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Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie
The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR
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A group biography of four beloved women who fought sexism, covered decades of American news, and whose voices defined NPR
In the years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women in the workplace still found themselves relegated to secretarial positions or locked out of jobs entirely. This was especially true in the news business, a backwater of male chauvinism where a woman might be lucky to get a foothold on the "women's pages." But when a pioneering nonprofit called National Public Radio came along in the 1970s, and the door to serious journalism opened a crack, four remarkable women came along and blew it off the hinges.
Susan, Linda, Nina, & Cokie is journalist Lisa Napoli's captivating account of these four women, their deep and enduring friendships, and the trail they blazed to becoming icons. They had radically different stories. Cokie Roberts was born into a political dynasty, roamed the halls of Congress as a child, and felt a tug toward public service. Susan Stamberg, who had lived in India with her husband who worked for the State Department, was the first woman to anchor a nightly news program and pressed for accommodations to balance work and home life. Linda Wertheimer, the daughter of shopkeepers in New Mexico, fought her way to a scholarship and a spot on-air. And Nina Totenberg, the network's legal affairs correspondent, invented a new way to cover the Supreme Court. Based on extensive interviews and calling on the author's deep connections in news and public radio, Susan, Linda, Nina, & Cokie will be as beguiling and sharp as its formidable subjects.
In the years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women in the workplace still found themselves relegated to secretarial positions or locked out of jobs entirely. This was especially true in the news business, a backwater of male chauvinism where a woman might be lucky to get a foothold on the "women's pages." But when a pioneering nonprofit called National Public Radio came along in the 1970s, and the door to serious journalism opened a crack, four remarkable women came along and blew it off the hinges.
Susan, Linda, Nina, & Cokie is journalist Lisa Napoli's captivating account of these four women, their deep and enduring friendships, and the trail they blazed to becoming icons. They had radically different stories. Cokie Roberts was born into a political dynasty, roamed the halls of Congress as a child, and felt a tug toward public service. Susan Stamberg, who had lived in India with her husband who worked for the State Department, was the first woman to anchor a nightly news program and pressed for accommodations to balance work and home life. Linda Wertheimer, the daughter of shopkeepers in New Mexico, fought her way to a scholarship and a spot on-air. And Nina Totenberg, the network's legal affairs correspondent, invented a new way to cover the Supreme Court. Based on extensive interviews and calling on the author's deep connections in news and public radio, Susan, Linda, Nina, & Cokie will be as beguiling and sharp as its formidable subjects.
Extent: 352 pp
Format: Hardback
Publication date: 2021-05-24
Size: 23.4 x 16.0 cm
ISBN: 9781419750403
Praise for Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie
[Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie] illuminates the terrifying, thrilling energy of NPR as start-up....The book is a lesson in how the fringe project of one generation becomes the mainstream of the next....Napoli portrays the network’s endearingly experimental, chaotic beginning.
The New York Times Book Review
“Napoli chronicles not just the camaraderie of Stamberg, Wertheimer, Totenberg and Roberts, but their commitment to help the careers of younger women who aspired to follow them. The founding mothers, in word and deed, offer a powerful lesson on what can happen when we carry as we climb.”
The Washington Post
“Histories, biographies, and behind-the-scenes narratives about the news biz typically idolize swaggering, chain-smoking, tough-talking dudes who tower over testimonies with testosterone-infused personalities. But with Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie, Napoli honors not the dog-eat-dog variety of journalist, but the fortitude of sisterhood, of women supporting each other.”
Oprah Daily
Lisa Napoli's Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie is an intimate and beautifully told tale of the extraordinary coming together of four women who would help shape a network, the news business, and each other's lives. I feel immensely grateful to these women for all they have done for NPR and for women in journalism and also incredibly proud to work alongside them.
About the Author
Lisa Napoli is a journalist, broadcaster, and biographer whose work explores the people and cultural forces that shape modern media. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, she began her career in television and radio and went on to report for outlets including The New York Times, MSNBC, and the public radio program Marketplace, as well as KCRW.
She is the author of several nonfiction books, including Radio Shangri-La, a memoir about helping launch a radio station in Bhutan; Ray & Joan, a biography of McDonald's figure Joan Kroc; Up All Night, a history of the early days of CNN; and Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie, which chronicles the pioneering women who helped build NPR.
Across her work, Napoli focuses on biography and narrative history, often examining the intersection of media, politics, and social change. She has covered a wide range of subjects throughout her career, from presidential campaigns to the emergence of the internet as a mass medium.
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